


I'm Having A Vision

by copperbadge



Category: Dead Zone
Genre: Bisexuality, F/M, M/M, Maybe unrequited?, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-14
Updated: 2005-11-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 05:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce knew he was in trouble when Sara mistook his date for Johnny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Having A Vision

Bruce knows Johnny better than anyone, though not better than anyone ever did. He thinks that might have been Sara or maybe Johnny's mama. He might've liked to know Johnny's mama, though apparently she wasn't the greatest judge of character in the world. She raised Johnny right, anyone can see that. 

But Johnny isn't the same now. His mama's dead and Sara doesn't want to see that he's different, and so she doesn't really know him at all anymore. Bruce does, though; he hasn't ever known him any other way. Bruce is the one who was there when Johnny had his PT, the one who taught him about all the changes in the world and in his own body. 

Bruce was the one who shouted at him to push harder, to go farther and faster. He was the one, not Sara, not Walt, not the Reverend Gene, who held Johnny when he tripped and fell and burst into frustrated tears, his anguish over his body's disobedience oddly childlike. When Bruce held him, Johnny had no visions. 

Bruce made him take his gloves off. All right, so Bruce had bought him the gloves in the first place, but that was a moot point. 

Most people who knew John could recognize that he'd had a vision. It wasn't hard; he'd pause and his eyes would get all wide and frightened. He'd breathe shallow and he wouldn't meet anyone else's eyes, especially if it had been a bad one. Only Bruce could see when he was _having_ one, though, right as he was having it -- the minute tension, the odd _wham_ that rippled off him. 

A couple of months after Johnny came out of the coma, Bruce's girlfriend Shelly left him because he was "bringin' home his work" and being difficult but anyway she didn't appreciate a good man when she had one and he wasn't all that sorry to see her go. There were plenty of fish in the sea, and Bruce had the advantage of playing the full field. His daddy would have killed him if he found out and Bruce knew that if anyone else from the church had ever found out they'd all have said he was going to hell, but _damn_ \-- did they not notice how fine all these fly young men were?

And all right, the dating pool of gay black men was pretty slim in Maine, but it was easier to date women anyway. When he did go out looking for a little down-low, he hadn't had much to choose from, until he started noticing white boys. How had he not noticed white boys before? Yeah, they had kinda pasty asses and way, _way_ too many of them were hung up on the idea of fucking a black man for the sake of fucking a black man, but some of them were oh, so worth it. 

And then.

Then came the Horrible Night. The Horrible Night where he picked up this pretty blue-eyed man and hell, it was still early so did he want to get a beer away from all the stupid dance music? And as they were walking down Cleaves Mill's one main street _Sara came up to them_ obviously doing an evening grocery run and called the man Johnny before she'd properly seen him and of course he wasn't John at all and he asked Bruce if John was his boyfriend or what and flounced off and Sara was all waiflike and confused like always and Bruce decided to go home for a while and have a serious, serious deep think. And also a lot to drink.

And there he was, a day and a half later, still thinking about the fact that for the last six months he'd been fucking guys who looked like Johnny. It was _pathetic_ was what it was, like something out of a third-rate romance novel. Not that he read those, but all the church women did and you picked stuff up, growing up with church women. 

The doorbell had rung twice, but Bruce was still sitting in his easy chair, thinking.

"Bruce!" came the muffled yell from outside. "Hey Bruce! I know you're in there! I'M A PSYCHIC, REMEMBER?"

Bruce groaned and got to his feet, opening the door. Johnny stood there, grinning.

"Now that's more like it!"

"Hey John," Bruce said, trying not to sound like he was miserable and confused.

"Hey yourself. Listen, put out your hand."

Bruce eyed him.

"Come on," Johnny said, grinning. Bruce knew that grin. It was the grin that Sara could wipe off Johnny's face with one well-placed bat of her overly long eyelashes, but it was Johnny's mischief grin. "Put out your hand."

"Man, what you want?"

"Bruce," John whined. Bruce rolled his eyes and put out his hand. John touched the back of his hand with his fingertips and closed his eyes.

"I'm having a vision!" he announced. Bruce snorted. "I'm seeing....me....buying you dinner....at Joey's Seafood Buffet."

"Big spender," Bruce drawled. "Did you spring for the large soda cup?"

"I'm seeing me...buying you dinner at....Quintillo's?"

"Now that's more like it! Do you see me ordering the lobster?"

"I might, I might," Johnny said, eyes still screwed shut. "And then I see you...doing me a huge favor."

Bruce scowled. "Yeah, what's that? Listen, you know you only get two favors a month from me..."

"This one's medical," John said a little more soberly, opening his eyes and putting his hand back on the knob of his cane. "It's the leg."

"What up?" Bruce asked, medical concern overriding mild embarrassment at playing along with Johnny's game. 

"It's, ah," Johnny looked embarrassed. "It's cramping a lot and I'm losing mobility. It was really embarrassing, I was...you know, Rebecca and me..." 

He bobbed his head, making the "you know what I'm talking about" face. 

"Oooh," Bruce said, eyes widening. "Bad time to cramp up."

"Tell me about it! So what do you say? I'll buy you dinner, you give me one or two of your awesome muscle treatments? It's almost like a date, except I'm going to end up in excruciating pain at the end of it. Which, you know, the way my last date with Rebecca went, I'm not entirely unused to that."

Bruce frowned. 

"Or...I could just pay you," John said uneasily, misinterpreting the hesitation. 

"Nah! Nah, it's all good, the dinner I'm gonna get is gonna cost you more than the muscle treatments anyway," Bruce said. "I got time to get dressed and stuff?"

"Oh yeah -- I'll meet you there in an hour or so?"

"Sure thing," Bruce said, and John went back to his jeep while Bruce closed the door, leaned on it, put his face in his hands, and steeled himself for a lobster dinner with John Smith, after which he would be getting physical. 

With John's _leg_.

Bruce sighed.

Having a crush on a psychic was going to be complicated.

END


End file.
